I received my new EMI Cher re-releases last weekend. EMI-UK has produced some new Imperial collections. One is a new compilation called The Best of Cher The Imperial Recordings 1965-1968.
They’ve whittled her Imperial stock down to…huh? 44 tracks? It’s not so much a question of why they included the songs they did, but why they rejected the one or two songs they didn’t include. And yet some of my favorites were still left out.
The CD has nice packaging. I love the colorized photos in the compilation, and the well-chosen black and white photos inside.
But it’s no match for US EMI retrospective that came out years and years ago Legendary Masters: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down): The Best of Cher which had illuminating session out-takes (“Needles & Pins”) and b-sides (“She’s No Better Than Me”), plus very nerdy liner notes. They also managed to make those tough-love choices, whittling down her Imperial catalog to only 22 tracks.
The other EMI-UK release is a double package of Backstage and Cher’s very first solo compilation, Golden Greats.
I ordered my first LP copy of Backstage from a used record store I found in a record guide when I was 13 years old – I anxiously awaited a live 60s album! Boy was I disappointed. But I got over it and learned to love “Take Me for a Little While,” “The Click Song” and “A Song Called Children.” I had already fallen in love with “Masters of War” from a 1978 Sonny & Cher compilation I had called The Beat Goes On. I remember, age 8, forcing my parents to sit in our living room in our blood-red, American-Furniture-style chairs while I played them this Bob Dylan dirge on our old mammoth phonograph. After it was over, they said "Very nice, honey" and went back to the Den to finish watching Roots.
Backstage ended up becoming one of my favorite Imperial albums next to With Love. Read my Cher Scholar reviews. I’ve been waiting a long time for a good CD re-release after suffering an awful bootleg or two. And that’s the best thing about these releases. A re-mastered CD is a joy to listen to. I’ve even started to appreciate “Carnival” more this week.
The Backstage CD includes all the original artwork. But the extra wrap of cardboard is over-packaging uselessness, annoying to deal with when getting your CD in and out. This booklet also overuses the Cher on the throne picture, on its cover (see the background fade to the left) and in various spots in the booklet. Although, she does wear a very Paris-Hilton expression in that photo.
The CD also includes the original liner notes to Backstage and Golden Greats. Sonny elicits a couldn’t-care-less statement from Cher. "You’ll either like me or you won’t." So transparent. Strangely, the Golden Greats liner notes seem different than the notes on my US LP. I remember this only because Golden Greats was the theme of my last Cher Zine. Does anyone know if the UK packaging for this compilation was always different or am I imagining things?
The new releases both have pathetic new liner notes that offer nothing new or insightful. Spartan career overviews are useful only for newbies when probably only die-hards and Cher historians will be buying this CD (there are very few real hits on it).
A side note: it really irks me when Cher biographers don’t listen to and speak about all her albums, like Backstage. The lady recorded over 35 original albums. Whether biographers like them or not is irrelevant; pay diligence fer Christ sake.
hi nice voice ok….
That may’ve been part of the reason the BACKSTAGE album didn’t sell much…..the cover art make it seem like a live album……ugh, glad it’s not. That story about playing Masters of War for your family is too hilarious. I used to practically hold my Mom hostage in the kitchen on Mondays and force her to listen to the latest Cher TV solo that I had taped the night before on my portable tape-recorder, with microphone held up to TV speaker.